Particle Theory for High-Energy Collider Physics

该奖项资助了肯尼索州立大学教授Nikolaos Kidonakis和Marco Guzzi的研究活动。 该研究项目侧重于与大型强子对撞机（LHC）和未来高能对撞机相关的理论粒子物理学方面。通过以比以往任何时候都更高的能量碰撞质子，物理学家希望更多地了解物质的基本粒子及其相互作用。 在这些基本粒子中，顶夸克是已经发现的质量最大的基本粒子，因此它是LHC物理计划的核心部分。 另一种粒子，即所谓的“希格斯玻色子”，参与了许多基本粒子获得质量的机制，确定希格斯玻色子的性质是一个高度优先事项。 同样，对质子结构的精确估计对于理解质子-质子碰撞的细节至关重要。 所有这些问题都将由Kidonakis和Guzzi教授进行研究。 特别是，这项研究将涉及最先进的计算，这将改善对顶夸克和希格斯粒子产生的理论预测，并将增加我们对质子结构的了解。因此，该项目将通过促进科学在其最基本方向之一的进步来促进国家利益：发现和理解基本粒子及其相互作用，以及寻找新的物理学。这项研究的结果将通过在经评审的期刊上发表和在国际会议和讲习班上介绍而广泛传播。该项目还将产生广泛的影响。它将涉及学生以及博士后研究人员在基础研究，从而为初级物理学家在这一领域提供关键的培训。在更广泛的社区开展的外联活动将向公众推广物理学知识。从技术上讲，该研究项目的目标是开发和实施形式化，以改善LHC和未来对撞机大量过程的高阶QCD校正的理论预测，以及质子中部分子分布函数（PDF）的确定。将对涉及顶夸克的过程的总截面和微分截面进行软胶子修正的恢复，包括包含单粒子的运动学中具有三粒子终态的过程，例如与电弱和希格斯玻色子相关的顶产生，以及标准模型和新物理模型中的其他过程。软异常尺寸将被计算为各种过程的三个回路的精度。此外，这些精确的计算将与选定的高精度强子对撞机测量一起用于专门的全球QCD分析，以限制重口味的PDF。将研究强子碰撞中的重味方案和因式分解定理，并探讨涉及重夸克产生与矢量玻色子有关的过程对确定重夸克PDF的影响。所有这些计算对于顶夸克和希格斯玻色子的精确研究，对于探索电弱对称性破缺和在LHC和未来对撞机上寻找新物理，以及对于更深入地了解质子的内容都很重要，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得支持通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Nikolaos Kidonakis and Marco Guzzi at Kennesaw State University. This research project focuses on aspects of theoretical particle physics relevant to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and future high-energy colliders. By colliding protons at higher energies than have ever been previously explored, physicists expect to learn more about the fundamental particles of matter and their interactions. Among such fundamental particles, the top quark is the most massive elementary particle that has been discovered, and thus it is a central part of the physics program at the LHC. Another particle, the so-called "Higgs boson", is involved in the mechanism through which many of the elementary particles gain their masses, and the determination of the properties of the Higgs boson is a high priority. Likewise, a precise estimate of the structure of the proton is critical in understanding the details of proton-proton collisions. All of these questions will be investigated by Professors Kidonakis and Guzzi. In particular, this research will involve state-of-the-art calculations which will improve theoretical predictions for the production of top quarks and the Higgs particle, and which will increase our knowledge of the structure of the proton. The project will thus advance the national interest by promoting the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions: the discovery and understanding of elementary particles and their interactions, and the search for new physics. The results of this research will be widely disseminated through publication in refereed journals and presentations at international conferences and workshops. This project will also have significant broader impacts. It will involve students as well as a postdoctoral researcher in fundamental research, and thereby provide critical training for junior physicists in this field. Outreach activities in the wider community will promote knowledge of physics to the public. More technically, the goal of the research project is to develop and implement formalisms that can improve theoretical predictions of higher-order QCD corrections for a large number of processes at the LHC and future colliders as well as the determination of parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton. Resummations of soft-gluon corrections will be performed for total and differential cross sections for processes involving top quarks, including processes with three-particle final states in single-particle-inclusive kinematics such as top production in association with electroweak and Higgs bosons, and other processes in the Standard Model and in models of new physics. Soft anomalous dimensions will be calculated for various processes to three-loop accuracy. Moreover, these precision calculations will be used together with selected high-precision hadron collider measurements in dedicated global QCD analyses to constrain heavy-flavor PDFs. Heavy-flavor schemes and factorization theorems in hadronic collisions will be studied, and the impact of processes that involve heavy-quark production in association with a vector boson on the determination of heavy-quark PDFs will be explored. All of these calculations are important for precision studies of the top quark and the Higgs boson, for the exploration of electroweak symmetry breaking and the search for new physics at the LHC and future colliders, as well as for deeper knowledge of the content of the proton, which is a dominant source of uncertainty in precision hadron collider physics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.